GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) is protesting The Huffington Post for "reinforcing gay stereotypes", but what about GLAAD reinforcing misrepresentation concerning the transsexual medical condition?
GLAAD makes a lot of people with transsexualism SAAD and MAAD due to GLAAD's BAAD miseducation about transsexual issues.
"Do unto others what thee shall have done unto you"
In full disclosure, I do write occasionally on The Huffington Post about transsexual, transgender and intersex issues, but that is not why I’m writing this blog post. I'm writing on this 'GLAAD protests The HuffPost’ story just to point out GLAAD's hypocrisy. As a member of the transsexual and intersex communities, I personally suffer the consequences of GLAAD misrepresenting the transsexual medical condition
For almost twenty years GLAAD has sought to erase the term transsexual from existence and replace it with transgender. I'm sorry (actually, I’m not sorry), but what does a heterosexual married man who is a transvestite once a month, a gay male drag queen who makes fun of women on stage and a gender queer activist have to do with a woman who has a transsexual medical condition? Absolutely nothing. Yet according to GLAAD's intellectually dishonest and lazy grouping of numerous groups of people they don’t understand, they are all inaccurately labeled as "transgender" and tossed in a 3rd gender reservation. This provides numerous problems for women and men of transsexual history.
GLAAD needs to stop ignoring us. I am already hearing reports that some people in the transsexual community are getting ready to press charges in court against GLAAD if they keep up their identity theft, misinformation and transsexual-phobic media guide
We are done being misgendered, objectified, erased, mocked and disrespected by GLAAD's media (mis)guide. We are fed up with them endangering our well-being. We are sick of them implying we are the same thing as a man in a dress. And we are through with them denying our medical condition it's valid legitimacy and accurate narrative.
So the gays and lesbians (no transsexual people work there, yet they think they can (mis)speak for us) who work at GLAAD don't like how it feels when they feel people are being homophobic? Well then, they need to understand that is exactly how the transsexual-phobia in their media guide and GLAAD enforcing "transgender umbrella ideology as fact whether transsexual people like it or not" makes us feel.
What's it going to be GLAAD? Will you continue to aid the religious far right, radical feminist lesbians who are anti-transsexual and discriminatory insurance/health care companies in misgendering us?
Hypocrisy much?
Read the following articles that explain more in depth why GLAAD's media guide is very problematic and inaccurate pertaining to the transsexual medical condition:
"GLAAD Media Guide Reform — It's Time." by Andrea Rosenfield
http://www.ts-si.org/science-news/28585
'GLAAD – Stop calling us transgender' by Dana Lane Taylor
http://www.ts-is-liberation.org/blog/2011/05/21/glaad-stop-calling-us-transgender/
'Transgender Inc and GLAAD' by Suzan Cooke of 'Women Born Transsexual'
http://womenborntranssexual.com/2011/01/25/transgender-inc-and-glaad/
'Why GLAAD Doesn’t Represent Me' by Suzan Cooke
http://womenborntranssexual.com/2011/06/11/why-glaad-doesn%E2%80%99t-represent-me/
'Yvonne Cook Riley Confesses Inventing “Transgender” to Erase Transsexuality' by Cathryn Platine
http://radicalbitch.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/yvonne-cook-riley-confesses-inventing-transgender-to-erase-transsexuality-to-skin-transvestite-weiss/
'The Death of the 'Transgender' Umbrella' by Mercedes Allen
http://www.bilerico.com/2011/06/the_death_of_transgender.php
Ashley, your point of view makes total sense to me and I agree with it. However, as strong as I believe I am, holding this seeming minority opinion puts a trans-activist like me in a precarious position.
ReplyDeleteI want to fight for the rights of transsexuals to use the appropriate restroom, change the sex on their driver's license or birth certificate, and not be denied medical insurance, health care or employment because of their condition.
I have no desire to fight for someone's once-a-month outing to allow them to go to whichever bathroom they choose. The gender queer person has no desire to change their legal documents. Drag queens aren't denied health insurance for the preexisting condition of "Gender Identity Disorder".
Being pragmatic and knowing what I stated previously, what exactly is it that I'm expected to fight for when it comes to "transgender" people? I believe everyone has a right to dress or identify however they wish, but beyond that, what exactly do transgender people want concerning civil rights?
Any ideas on why your position and mine are frowned upon? Any ideas as to what transgender people actually want us to fight for?
My main problem with inclusion under this transgender umbrella, as a transsexual person myself, is that it does dome harm. I'm a bit older and recall a time when I never even heard the word transgender - it just didn't exist so far as I know. In my day, we transitioned by the HBSOC, passing was a consideration that did matter to therapists and we just wanted to get on with life after SRS.
ReplyDeleteCall it woodworking, going stealth or whatever you like, we just wanted to live as normally as possible and enjoy life. We had been doing that quite well. Once this whole transgender movement began and transsexuals were included in it, like it or not, people we didn't want speaking for us began to do us harm.
It was painfully difficult to educate people that transsexualism is a medical condition. Once that was established however, we tended to be treated in a more compassionate manner that was consistent with the body and mind we possessed. Transgenderism muddied the waters. Being a transvestite is a choice. being a drag queen or gender queer is a choice. Being transsexual is not.
By attaching them self to the term transsexual, the transgenders attempted to legitimize their fetishistic behavior as a medical condition as well which requires legal protections. They want the ability to be able to say that being denied the use of a restroom not consistent with their legal sex marker is a hate crime. They want to claim persecution and denial of civil liberties every chance they get. They want to act as a front for the GLAADS and gay inc. to eradicate the term transsexual entirely in the future.
Transvestites have every right to express them self, they just should not expect that the world bends over backward to accommodate their fetish and consider it "normal".